From the Executive Officer
“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate”
-Oprah Winfrey
We are entering a summer with so many reasons to celebrate. Celebrating the Centennial of the Order of DeMolay, Celebrating Wisconsin DeMolay’s Conclave and celebrating our love of this great organization. For all of you participating in these celebrations, please share your experiences with the world via your favorite social media. Embrace all of the new ideas shared. Open your arms to the new brothers you will meet. However, make sure you take some time to put the electronic devices away and truly live in the moment. Step back and take a mental note of the experience to remember in the future. I guarantee, you will look back one day and be glad you did.
Planning Weekend
Your State Officers and Staff had an excellent weekend of fellowship and planning for the upcoming year. AS soon as SMC Braden Baumann wrapped up the plans for Conclave, there was a seamless handoff to State Master Councilor Elect Joe Bloom so that he could paint his vision for the upcoming year. Bro. Bloom and his corps will pick up right where his predecessors leave off and continue to carry the DeMolay torch in Wisconsin. I look forward to continued excellent leadership and growth as the torch is passed.
Centennial
I know many of you have been patiently waiting for the finalized details. The link to the updated itineraries are below. Dress code is included. Note that there are separate itineraries for the General Delegation, State Officers and Ritual Competitors.
A huge Thank You to Lake Lodge for opening their doors to us so that we may stage prior to departing. Doors will open at 6. Please make sure you eat prior to arrival, as there will not be a meal at Lake Lodge, but Dad Graeven tells me there may be some form of deliciousness to snack on later in the evening. Also, to pass the time at Lake Lodge while waiting for the buses, bring a movie or game to play – DeMolay appropriate of course.
Advisor of the Year
We will be presenting the Advisor of the Year award at Conclave this year. Please forward any nominations directly to me. There is no official form, just put in your own words why you feel the individual is deserving. Nominations may come from Advisors or members.
Thank you for all you do for the young men of Wisconsin DeMolay!
Dad DeGrave
Personal Representative to the Grand Master
WI DeMolay
Event Spotlight
View our next state event by clicking the image below!
Where is the Traveling Gavel?
Want to go find the traveling gavel and have some fun meeting and traveling with your fellow brothers? The Traveling Gavel is currently at Godfrey de Boullion Chapter so go out and get it!
Operations Update
Website Updates:
A couple of concerns came to be about the website, the main one being that the maps for the chapter pages were not working. After reaching out to our web designer she managed to fix this except for Kenosha’s for some reason (don’t worry I’m having her work on your fix so that will be resolved soon). Now if you go on your chapter pages a live map location of your lodge will be present on that page.
I also am having it looked into why the Newsletter pages are not appearing on the chapter page when you go to create it. Hopefully that problem will be resolved soon. If you want to do a short fix for newsletters in the time being, what you can do is create a newsletter archive page and place any news under there. The page will appear in the navigation bar of your chapter page as “Newsletters”.
A note on conclave registration: You may wonder “why are there so many different registrations?” This separation helps Wisconsin DeMolay better grab statistics and information based on what type of people are attending our events. Separating Youth/Adult moving forward like this will make looking at past events and numbers easier so that we can plan accordingly for future events. We will also be looking through ConstantContact records to compare numbers from previous years to see where we can improve on state events.
The chapters page on the website has been updated to be laid out by district to better help define what district a chapter is apart of.
I am also looking into integrating the EO Newsletter/future newsletters onto the website.
If you have any other suggestions or notice any bugs on the website feel free to reach out to me.
Google Drive Updates:
- Sweetheart Manual added to the “Bylaws and Rules” section under Resources
- Updated State Officer Handbook (2019) was added to the same section
- Toolboxes courtesy of Arizona DeMolay were added to the Resources folder under “informative Toolboxes”
- These contain different types of toolboxes that will provide you and your chapter with materials that will help you run meetings, plan a term, and plan an installation. More toolboxes specific to Wisconsin DeMolay, specifically advisor training, will be added in the future.
- Membership folder under resources has been renamed “Membership Toolbox” and moved under Informative Toolboxes.
- Wisconsin’s Annual Calendar Now resides under the Resources folder. This lays out the State calendar that will be updated as time goes on. This is a faster way to see the full calendar as opposed to searching through every month of the calendar of the website.
- Wisconsin DeMolay Archives Folder has been created under the resources which will house historical documents related to Wisconsin DeMolay. Will be filled at a later date.
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And finally I would like to mention what is going to be changing a little bit with the EO Newsletter starting next month. For the operations update I will be no longer doing a typed out portion. Instead the Operations update will turn to a video format where recipients of the newsletter will be able to watch what is developing in the state from the office perspective rather than reading. I hope this will help engage the audience a bit more moving forward as I know sitting and reading emails can be dull. This will also be a test moving forward for the State Officer program and their newsletter/updates.
Thanks for all you do!
Dad Dakota Wells
Operations Coordinator
Chapter Excellency
Brookfield Chapter: 460 Points
Doric Chapter: 1000 Points
Chippewa Valley Chapter: N/A
Godfrey De Boullion Chapter: 210 Points
Green Bay Chapter: N/A
Kenosha Chapter: N/A
Lincoln/Ozaukee Chapter: N/A
Madison Chapter: N/A
Northern Lights Chapter: N/A
Racine Chapter: N/A
Sir Galahad Chapter: 1180 Points
West Bend Chapter: N/A
Upcoming Events
- June 12: Kenosha’s Honor Dads and Masons Night
- June 18: Sir Galahad Installation of Officers
- June 25 – 29th: DeMolay International Centennial